you
thank you all for coming out this
evening it’s it really as an honor and
pleasure to be here talking about
National Geographic and and in somewhat
of a light that maybe some of you know
about but maybe some of you don’t know
about I mean everybody knows about the
golden rectangle and about the National
Geographic magazine most of you know
about our Channel and the fact that
through our media we reach almost 400
million sols around the world it’s
incredible it’s an honor to represent
National Geographic but it’s also
equally important to remember that we
are a funder of research and that we are
a player where proactive if we want to
tell the stories of people places
cultures ecology whales and lions other
things that I don’t deal with we have to
preserve that we have to be able to take
care of our world so that future
generations our kids and their kids will
be able to turn to National Geographic
and have the same stories to be told you
know we have a very special thing with
history and culture it’s very actually
different from you know biological world
or oceans and things like that it’s a
the difference is that that culture the
past the remains of our history is um
it’s non-renewable like once a giant
Buddha is destroyed it can come back
it’s gone once a site is destroyed that
little piece of history that piece of
people’s identity is is gone you can’t
replace that and so we become really
sort of focused on what can we do as a
group as a bunch of you know drummers in
a band to get people so that we say yeah
we can actually do something that’s what
this evening is all about
when we look at the world and certainly
that’s something that’s interesting
about Geographic is that we do have as
our research arena all the continents of
the world even even Antarctica we don’t
have that these these circles here these
ovals are centers of civilization
centers of dense archaeological finds as
you can see it you know we’re looking at
something that which is not on one
continent or another not we’re not going
to talk about all of these tonight we’re
going to look at a few case examples but
when when we look at the whole issue of
you know how to keep cultures and keep
identities and artifacts where they
belong how is it that that these
different cultures can become proud of
their role in part of human history in
defining humanity um it’s huge it’s
almost unbelievable when I work with
customs agents about what’s coming
through the airports at what’s coming
through our ports it’s you know I show
them in the inspection I say you have a
huge you know issue on your hands you
could have you know artifacts from the
Andes just as easily as you could have
artifacts from Mali just as easily as
you could have artifacts from
Afghanistan in a box being transported
away from its home how are you going to
deal with that but that’s something
which is we’re going to talk about those
kind of interesting topics tonight and
we’re going to look at a few of these
areas i call these archaeological
hotspots and I’m happy to tell you more
about those archaeological hotspots and
discussion but I’m going to give you a
few examples and I’ll give to
Afghanistan and Peru just to tell you a
little bit about approaches that we can
have very positive approaches that we
can help to inspire these artifacts and
these cultures to remain alive in the
countries where they are these are
archaeologically rich countries right
all of them all of them have so many
sites it’s hard to count them Afghan
stan is famous for its role on the Silk
Road and we have artifacts all over the
place I think it was the first country
where we had sort of an international
recognition for a country’s cultural
heritage for something that we really
wish didn’t happen this is a giant
buddha in the Bamiyan Valley huge over a
hundred feet tall incredible belt you
know in the sixth or seventh or eighth
century AD it’s been famous it was a
tourist attraction and many of you
remember when it was destroyed that sort
of cultural destruction cannot be
replaced and it for the first time
focused international attention on you
know the center of the Silk Road to say
oh my goodness we didn’t really realize
that culture was a big factor in this
and I think when it was on the front
pages of the New York Times when it was
on the pages of National Geographic when
you saw this on CNN you realize oh this
is important at the same time people
have to realize it that that fragility
of culture wasn’t just at pajmhi on this
is 2003 when I first saw the National
Museum of Afghanistan this is the museum
no roof no windows and inside no
artifacts I went there on behalf of
national geographic magazine to sort of
write a postscript about what I thought
was a tragedy something that people
should know about but something else
happened okay I went to the museum all
the way to Afghanistan I had never
actually been to Afghanistan before even
though i had written about it i had
written reports in archaeology magazine
i wrote my dissertation on it was sort
of like I never thought I was going to
Afghanistan and I went and I talked to
the museum director this man Omar Khan
masoudi he’s one of my cultural heroes
that this evening is about and I said
what do I say about the treasures of
Afghanistan and he said well you know
the treasures of the mat of the National
Museum meant a lot to us and
you know before the museum was destroyed
we hid them away oh wow he said that’s a
secret but I’m telling you and we ended
up doing something that we never
expected to do at National Geographic we
sponsored in the inventory of the hidden
collections of Afghanistan this is one
of the pieces we put all these things on
inventory computerized digital images
and we created a passport for these
objects that meant that now these
objects were visible to the whole world
and could never actually be sold or
marketed again kind of squashing a
market for these objects it also led to
the bactrian gold exhibition there
feeling of sense of self about this
within Afghanistan a sense of great
honor and sort of cultural heritage that
they hadn’t seen for 30 years and that’s
a really positive thing that came out of
working together on that there are other
problems and we continue to work with
the Afghans on issues of what happens
during the situation when sites are
looted this is actually not an
excavation these are people who are just
digging for treasures in Afghanistan and
it hurts me to look at this picture my
friend who excavated the bactrian gold
he took this picture and here’s a
picture of where those artifacts ended
up that’s the marketplace in Kabul I
can’t tell you how many 4,000 year old
burials this represents cuz it’s
impossible for me to say that but each
one of those vessels represents a piece
of culture which is out and about to be
sent abroad for pennies on on each piece
it’s it’s tragic from a personal point
of view from an Afghan point of view and
from a world point of view to see oh
that’s a whole chapter of history right
there so we do do things and I am
pleased to say that we work with US
Customs we work with UNESCO we work with
culture with with groups around the
world and one of the things that we do
is we help for example this is US
Customs this
is a shipment of illegally transported
artifacts that thanks to collaboration
between the US government and the
governments around the world including
Afghanistan and proven quite a few
countries we’re able to say look these
pieces belong in a home and they can be
sent back and we’re so pleased to be
able to say that repatriations are an
important part of what we do here at
national de Graaff here in Washington DC
and the United States is a really good
partner in doing this since I think it’s
a fantastic thing that you should all
know about let’s turn quickly to my
second example which is Peru so we move
continents this is a Peruvian pyramid
sometimes hard to say see so I put a
little drawing of a pyramid tis it hey
look you know this is just like Egypt
you’re gonna see some pictures of
pyramids later you know you’ve got
pyramids that are known from the Maya
area from Egypt but believe me they’re
in / 02 but pyramids attract the
attention of looters and things from
those pyramids have been on sale in the
market for a long long time and this is
a piece from the exhibition that was on
the market in Italy we’re so pleased
when the ambassador from Peru asked the
president of Italy that’s him in the
front please return this piece of
Peruvian culture and they did it was
like ancient Rome returning something to
ancient Peru I would thought that that’s
kind of a cool concept right we’re
really pleased but you know it’s at for
many years as being kind of like okay
that’s a large cool mask like what does
it mean and you know without the context
of knowing what it is it was a little
enigmatic still very cool but having the
objects in a database that can be
presented to anybody as you know around
the world this is the local museum in
Peru and which is a model the director
of the largo museum was here he has a
collection of 45,000 objects you can
visit every single one of these objects
in high resolution because every single
object in their collection is on the web
I think that’s fantastic we don’t have
museums in the United
states that have that and our best
example comes from Lima Peru if you look
very carefully we have a piece that was
stolen from Peru was returned by US
Customs it was at the Peruvian embassy
and I said would you please put this on
display annals oh my god that’s huge and
this piece has been stolen twice from
Peru because the market is so hyphen
that we’re trying to reduce that market
this piece after the exhibition will be
going back to Peru to its right home
Peru is a nice example because this is
using drones to document archaeological
sites in Peru we really are you know
it’s not just archaeologists as Indiana
Jones with it with a shovel and a web we
use drones we use satellites we use best
technology available to help us
understand and preserve cultures for the
world editions is alive when it is
culture stays alive our people should
know what happened they should know
about their culture about their history
that is true for every culture around
the world they should know about their
culture if they should know about that
history it’s a win-win situation for
everybody we need to do the inventory of
the collections and sites we need to
help with the repatriations and we need
to get people excited about visiting
these countries where they come from
like Egypt thank you very much
you
thank you all for coming out this
evening it’s it really as an honor and
pleasure to be here talking about
National Geographic and and in somewhat
of a light that maybe some of you know
about but maybe some of you don’t know
about I mean everybody knows about the
golden rectangle and about the National
Geographic magazine most of you know
about our Channel and the fact that
through our media we reach almost 400
million sols around the world it’s
incredible it’s an honor to represent
National Geographic but it’s also
equally important to remember that we
are a funder of research and that we are
a player where proactive if we want to
tell the stories of people places
cultures ecology whales and lions other
things that I don’t deal with we have to
preserve that we have to be able to take
care of our world so that future
generations our kids and their kids will
be able to turn to National Geographic
and have the same stories to be told you
know we have a very special thing with
history and culture it’s very actually
different from you know biological world
or oceans and things like that it’s a
the difference is that that culture the
past the remains of our history is um
it’s non-renewable like once a giant
Buddha is destroyed it can come back
it’s gone once a site is destroyed that
little piece of history that piece of
people’s identity is is gone you can’t
replace that and so we become really
sort of focused on what can we do as a
group as a bunch of you know drummers in
a band to get people so that we say yeah
we can actually do something that’s what
this evening is all about
when we look at the world and certainly
that’s something that’s interesting
about Geographic is that we do have as
our research arena all the continents of
the world even even Antarctica we don’t
have that these these circles here these
ovals are centers of civilization
centers of dense archaeological finds as
you can see it you know we’re looking at
something that which is not on one
continent or another not we’re not going
to talk about all of these tonight we’re
going to look at a few case examples but
when when we look at the whole issue of
you know how to keep cultures and keep
identities and artifacts where they
belong how is it that that these
different cultures can become proud of
their role in part of human history in
defining humanity um it’s huge it’s
almost unbelievable when I work with
customs agents about what’s coming
through the airports at what’s coming
through our ports it’s you know I show
them in the inspection I say you have a
huge you know issue on your hands you
could have you know artifacts from the
Andes just as easily as you could have
artifacts from Mali just as easily as
you could have artifacts from
Afghanistan in a box being transported
away from its home how are you going to
deal with that but that’s something
which is we’re going to talk about those
kind of interesting topics tonight and
we’re going to look at a few of these
areas i call these archaeological
hotspots and I’m happy to tell you more
about those archaeological hotspots and
discussion but I’m going to give you a
few examples and I’ll give to
Afghanistan and Peru just to tell you a
little bit about approaches that we can
have very positive approaches that we
can help to inspire these artifacts and
these cultures to remain alive in the
countries where they are these are
archaeologically rich countries right
all of them all of them have so many
sites it’s hard to count them Afghan
stan is famous for its role on the Silk
Road and we have artifacts all over the
place I think it was the first country
where we had sort of an international
recognition for a country’s cultural
heritage for something that we really
wish didn’t happen this is a giant
buddha in the Bamiyan Valley huge over a
hundred feet tall incredible belt you
know in the sixth or seventh or eighth
century AD it’s been famous it was a
tourist attraction and many of you
remember when it was destroyed that sort
of cultural destruction cannot be
replaced and it for the first time
focused international attention on you
know the center of the Silk Road to say
oh my goodness we didn’t really realize
that culture was a big factor in this
and I think when it was on the front
pages of the New York Times when it was
on the pages of National Geographic when
you saw this on CNN you realize oh this
is important at the same time people
have to realize it that that fragility
of culture wasn’t just at pajmhi on this
is 2003 when I first saw the National
Museum of Afghanistan this is the museum
no roof no windows and inside no
artifacts I went there on behalf of
national geographic magazine to sort of
write a postscript about what I thought
was a tragedy something that people
should know about but something else
happened okay I went to the museum all
the way to Afghanistan I had never
actually been to Afghanistan before even
though i had written about it i had
written reports in archaeology magazine
i wrote my dissertation on it was sort
of like I never thought I was going to
Afghanistan and I went and I talked to
the museum director this man Omar Khan
masoudi he’s one of my cultural heroes
that this evening is about and I said
what do I say about the treasures of
Afghanistan and he said well you know
the treasures of the mat of the National
Museum meant a lot to us and
you know before the museum was destroyed
we hid them away oh wow he said that’s a
secret but I’m telling you and we ended
up doing something that we never
expected to do at National Geographic we
sponsored in the inventory of the hidden
collections of Afghanistan this is one
of the pieces we put all these things on
inventory computerized digital images
and we created a passport for these
objects that meant that now these
objects were visible to the whole world
and could never actually be sold or
marketed again kind of squashing a
market for these objects it also led to
the bactrian gold exhibition there
feeling of sense of self about this
within Afghanistan a sense of great
honor and sort of cultural heritage that
they hadn’t seen for 30 years and that’s
a really positive thing that came out of
working together on that there are other
problems and we continue to work with
the Afghans on issues of what happens
during the situation when sites are
looted this is actually not an
excavation these are people who are just
digging for treasures in Afghanistan and
it hurts me to look at this picture my
friend who excavated the bactrian gold
he took this picture and here’s a
picture of where those artifacts ended
up that’s the marketplace in Kabul I
can’t tell you how many 4,000 year old
burials this represents cuz it’s
impossible for me to say that but each
one of those vessels represents a piece
of culture which is out and about to be
sent abroad for pennies on on each piece
it’s it’s tragic from a personal point
of view from an Afghan point of view and
from a world point of view to see oh
that’s a whole chapter of history right
there so we do do things and I am
pleased to say that we work with US
Customs we work with UNESCO we work with
culture with with groups around the
world and one of the things that we do
is we help for example this is US
Customs this
is a shipment of illegally transported
artifacts that thanks to collaboration
between the US government and the
governments around the world including
Afghanistan and proven quite a few
countries we’re able to say look these
pieces belong in a home and they can be
sent back and we’re so pleased to be
able to say that repatriations are an
important part of what we do here at
national de Graaff here in Washington DC
and the United States is a really good
partner in doing this since I think it’s
a fantastic thing that you should all
know about let’s turn quickly to my
second example which is Peru so we move
continents this is a Peruvian pyramid
sometimes hard to say see so I put a
little drawing of a pyramid tis it hey
look you know this is just like Egypt
you’re gonna see some pictures of
pyramids later you know you’ve got
pyramids that are known from the Maya
area from Egypt but believe me they’re
in / 02 but pyramids attract the
attention of looters and things from
those pyramids have been on sale in the
market for a long long time and this is
a piece from the exhibition that was on
the market in Italy we’re so pleased
when the ambassador from Peru asked the
president of Italy that’s him in the
front please return this piece of
Peruvian culture and they did it was
like ancient Rome returning something to
ancient Peru I would thought that that’s
kind of a cool concept right we’re
really pleased but you know it’s at for
many years as being kind of like okay
that’s a large cool mask like what does
it mean and you know without the context
of knowing what it is it was a little
enigmatic still very cool but having the
objects in a database that can be
presented to anybody as you know around
the world this is the local museum in
Peru and which is a model the director
of the largo museum was here he has a
collection of 45,000 objects you can
visit every single one of these objects
in high resolution because every single
object in their collection is on the web
I think that’s fantastic we don’t have
museums in the United
states that have that and our best
example comes from Lima Peru if you look
very carefully we have a piece that was
stolen from Peru was returned by US
Customs it was at the Peruvian embassy
and I said would you please put this on
display annals oh my god that’s huge and
this piece has been stolen twice from
Peru because the market is so hyphen
that we’re trying to reduce that market
this piece after the exhibition will be
going back to Peru to its right home
Peru is a nice example because this is
using drones to document archaeological
sites in Peru we really are you know
it’s not just archaeologists as Indiana
Jones with it with a shovel and a web we
use drones we use satellites we use best
technology available to help us
understand and preserve cultures for the
world editions is alive when it is
culture stays alive our people should
know what happened they should know
about their culture about their history
that is true for every culture around
the world they should know about their
culture if they should know about that
history it’s a win-win situation for
everybody we need to do the inventory of
the collections and sites we need to
help with the repatriations and we need
to get people excited about visiting
these countries where they come from
like Egypt thank you very much
you
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